Back when George H.W. Bush was running for president, there was a huge media flap when a reporter asked him how much a gallon of milk cost, and he had no idea.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 I\u2019m in that same boat.\u00a0 If you asked me the price of a gallon of milk right now, I\u2019d be completely out of my depth.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be clear here, I understand that I am incredibly spoiled and pampered. I no longer do regular grocery shopping. I make up a list, hand it over, and the next thing I know whatever I ordered has not only shown up in the kitchen, it\u2019s been unpacked and put away in the fridge or cupboard.\u00a0 A number of weeks ago, I met a woman who said, \u201cI used to run into you in QFC.\u00a0 Have you stopped shopping there?\u201d The truth is, I\u2019ve stopped shopping pretty much everywhere.<\/p>\n
With rare exceptions. When it\u2019s time to fix that turkey dinner for Thanksgiving or serve up the ham for Lil Jul Aften, then I go to the store, because\u00a0 I know I\u2019ll end up seeing things I need that I won\u2019t remember to put on a list for someone else to buy.\u00a0 And at least once a year, I do a sprint through Costco just to keep in practice and stay in the know. And also, occasionally, to pick up some needed steps inside building that is a: out of the rain or b: air-conditioned, depending on whether we\u2019re in Washington or Arizona at the time.<\/p>\n
As Bill and I have gotten older, our kids have started taking over some of the holiday cooking chores. Tom\u2019s ham strata at Christmas; Jeanne T.\u2019s salmon dip; Cindy\u2019s taking charge of the barbecue grill for a summer hot dog feed.<\/p>\n
She did that last year when Bill and I were trying to celebrate the Fourth of July while also sticking as close as possible to the no-carb way.\u00a0 She used skewers and cooked up a batch of spiral hot dogs. I had never seen such a thing before, and I considered them a wonder and a marvel.\u00a0 Even without benefit of a bun, the condiments stuck in the charred dips in the body of the hot dogs.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s just say I loved them.\u00a0 The next time we were going to have hot dogs, I marched into Safeway looking for those \u201cwonderful spiral hot dogs.\u201d\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 They were nowhere to be found.\u00a0 The clerk I asked looked at me as though I had just landed on earth from another planet. You see, I had somehow missed the whole routine in the kitchen where Cindy had put the wieners on the skewers and then carefully used a paring knife to carve the spirals.<\/p>\n
Cindy will be doing spiral hot dogs again to celebrate THIS Fourth of July. I will not be buying them at Safeway! I think that\u2019s one of the things the kids appreciate about me\u2014I\u2019m always good for a laugh, usually at my own expense!<\/p>\n
Happy Fourth of July, people, and remember, we\u2019re the home of the free because of the brave.101<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back when George H.W. Bush was running for president, there was a huge media flap when a reporter asked him how much a gallon of milk cost, and he had no idea.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 I\u2019m in that same boat.\u00a0 If you asked me the price of a gallon of milk right now, I\u2019d be completely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-holidays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t